Brooklyn Nets: What Can Superstar Trades Achieve?
By Adam McGee
For the second season in a row, things haven’t quite started as planned for the Brooklyn Nets. Last year, with a rookie coach and some new players, there was a general acceptance that there was a need for everybody to bed in, this time it’s different though.
There’s an anxiety, a feeling that this sense of deja vu might not disappear with a turn of form like the team managed last year.
As one of the most expensive rosters in the NBA, and one that isn’t necessarily young in years either, it’s no surprise that the Nets may have started to think about freshening things up.
First reported a couple of days ago by Marc Stein and Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN, the Nets are more than open to explore the possibility of change, even if that involves moving on from some of the players that they previously viewed as key components in building a team that could challenge for a championship. As revealed in ESPN’s report:
"The Brooklyn Nets have begun reaching out to teams to let them know that former All-Stars Deron Williams, Brook Lopez and Joe Johnson are available via trade, ESPN.com has learned.League sources told ESPN.com that the Nets, off to a disappointing 8-11 start and looking to retool after last season’s $190 million roster filled with veterans couldn’t advance beyond the second round of the playoffs, have let it be known that they are prepared to move any of those franchise cornerstones in what would likely be separate deals if they came to fruition because of the high salaries each possess."
The most important part to note in all of this speculation is indeed, the high salaries of the three players mentioned. Although they possess All-Star caliber talent, for the amount of money that any team would have to commit to them, the prospect of making a trade with the Nets isn’t very appealing.
For a variety of reasons, the best days of Johnson, Williams and Lopez could potentially all be behind them. Of course, that means the Nets are wise to look to move them on, but in the end the contracts they granted Lopez and Williams, and the one they inherited with Johnson are going to limit the value of any potential returns for Brooklyn.
So with that in mind, what are the Nets looking to achieve by calling a halt to their trust in the core of their current roster? The answer is one of two things, and I’m not sure either make sense.
The first possibility could be that the Nets haven’t completely given up on competing with the current core and feel if they could flip one of the three for an upgrade it would get them back on track. The issue for the Nets is that with the rest of the league fully aware of their intentions, they have no chance of getting a player of equal value in return.
On top of that, trading any one of those three players would create a significant hole, and would that couldn’t just be filled by multiple solid rotation players.
The other possibility is that Brooklyn have completely lost faith and are looking to reset. Where the trouble starts for them in this scenario is that their reckless approach to building this team has left them without a reliable reserve of future draft picks to build with.
They could try to trade with a team in win-now mode, who feel one of Brooklyn’s trio could push them over the edge, but even if they were offered a decent haul of draft picks, it’s not easy to find too many competitive teams with salary space to make the deal.
It’s important to remember that at the moment the Nets are just making phone calls, and nothing is imminent. Either way, they’ve got to be very careful though. As poor as they’ve been to start this season, a bad trade could set them up to be much worse for years to come.